October 23, 2012

How Ancient Egyptian Worked ?
The working classes can
be divided into three categories: the intellectual literates (from whom
came physicians, architects and landed noblemen), the Egyptian
craftsmen (including the artists and sculptors) and the peasant farmers
and labourers.

Medicine
The Egyptian
temples of Heliopolis, Sais and Memphis were centres of learning from
earliest times. Here physicians were trained. Such titles as ‘Chief of
the Dental Physicians’ (Hesi-Ra), ‘Palace Eye Expert, Physician of the
Belly, One Comprehending Internal Fluids and Guardian of the Anus’
(Iri), or ‘Chief Oculist of the Royal Court’ (Wah-Dwa), support
Herodotus’ observation that there were specialists in ancient Egypt for
the different branches of medicine. The Ministry of Health, if one
might call it such, comprised the ‘Chief of Physicians’ and their
assistants (non-specialists) under an ‘Inspector of Physicians’. Such
titles as ‘The Chief Physician of Upper Egypt’ (Ibi), or ‘Greatest
Physician of Upper and Lower Egypt’ indicate that within the medical
profession there was a liaison between distant provinces and the
central court.

The Egyptian medical papyri, of which
there are over a score, are clear indication of the advances made in
the medical field from very early times. Though the texts date to the
Middle and New Kingdoms, it has been established that these were copies
(sometimes third and fourth hand) of very early texts. Archaic grammar
and obsolete words point to their antiquity as well as certain
references to the Old Kingdom. The Berlin medical papyrus, for example,
known as the Mother and Child Papyrus, bears a statement that it was
found under a statue near Giza in the time of the pharaoh Den (1st
dynasty). It further states that after his death it was brought to the
pharaoh Sened (2nd dynasty), ‘because of its excellence’.

The
text was signed by ‘The Scribe of Sacred Writings, the Chief of the
Excellent Physicians, Neferhotep, who prepared the book’, (ie he copied
it from an original manuscript). The London medical papyrus bears a
statement that it was ‘brought as a marvel to the Majesty of King
Khufu’. And the Edwin Smith surgical papyrus, believed to be the
earliest, might have been a copy of the original manuscript of Djer
(second pharaoh of the 1st dynasty whose books on anatomy survived,
according to Manetho, until Greco/Roman times). It dealt with
forty-eight carefully arranged surgical cases of wounds and fractures,
detailing a dispassionate examination of the patient and prescribing
cures. No ailment was ascribed to the activity of a demonaic power and
there was very little magic; the ancient Egyptian people were not
witch doctors who gave incantations but physicians who prescribed
healing remedies and operations. Though some of the cures might be
considered rather fanciful extract of the hair of a black calf to
prevent graying others became famous for their virtue in later times.
This was a society where educated men sought methods to prolong life.
Beliefs in the potency of spells or exorcisms undoubtedly existed,
especially among the lower classes, along with the belief in magical
charms and talismans, but magico-religious medicine, as such, only
flourished in later times.

Medical and surgical papyri
in ancient Egypt were undoubtedly compiled at different periods, each
adding to the limited knowledge of a predecessor. By the 6th dynasty
there appears to have been a firmly established medical tradition. For
when the vizier Weshptah, architect/friend of the pharaoh Neferirkere,
suffered a stroke in the king’s presence, he showed great solicitude
for his stricken friend and ordered his officials to consult medical
documents for a remedy to help the vizier regain consciousness.

Mural
reliefs provide further evidence of medical practices. Sesa’s tomb at
Saqqara (5th dynasty) is known as the Doctor’s Tomb in view of the
reliefs showing the manipulation of joints. Egyptian Ankhmahor’s tomb
(6th dynasty) is known as the Physician’s Tomb and shows an operation
on a man’s toe and the circumcision of a youth the latter was practised
on boys between six and twelve years of age. Finally, we know from
mummified bodies that dental surgery was used from early times. Some
have teeth extracted, and a 4th-dynasty mummy of a man shows two holes,
apparently drilled, beneath a right molar of the lower jaw for draining
an abscess. Wooden splints and linen bandages encase broken limbs in
pre-dynastic tombs and, indeed, the advances made in mummification
indicate a sound knowledge of anatomy.

The highly
specialised profession of mummification was not perfected until the
Egyptian New Kingdom. It was performed by priests, as against medicine
which was practised by scholars. In the early dynastic period when the
bodies of the dead were placed in tombs they were found to perish more
quickly than when protected by the warm sand. Since the lifelike
appearance was believed essential for a continued existence in the
afterlife, artificial means of preservation had to be sought. Early
efforts to accomplish this (in the 2nd dynasty) included modelling in
clay the features of the face, the genitals and breasts with nipples.
This gave an uncannily lifelike appearance. Subsequently, linen strips
dipped in resinous material were moulded on to the shrunken body,
carefully wrapping individual fingers, etc, the body cavities being
filled with linen. Later the intestines and vital organs were removed,
wrapped in linen strips and immersed in a natron solution. This
development led to the preservation of the viscera in four canopic jars
placed in a box (the earliest were those of Khufu’s mother).